A personal blog dedicated to insights, musings, and inquiries derived from my life as an queer bodhisattva-minded person whose into radical social change.

Monday, June 30, 2008

A word that does not mean listless

I’m in search of a word.

Often I imagine my life a segmented off into discreet boxes, stacked neatly into columns, packaged into blocks that coincide with some version of time that’s hybrid of linear and whatever else exists beyond it. And when I’m compulsively making my to-do lists, I color code those blocks of time to correspond to whatever I’m compelled to achieve for the moment. Only sometimes, I stand at the precipice of one block, peering into the abyss of undone, unwilling to cross over. It’s then that I push, ever so gently on those flimsy lines that quarantine off what I have done from the web of things I have yet to do in order to make a little space for that yearning to just linger…

6 comments:

hmmm.... sometimes I think it is wistful, but sometimes it's not so melancholy. Sometimes the lingering is out of appreciation less than desire, it's savoring what is and has been without feeling like I have to take anything with me as I cross the threshold. It's that unconditional acceptance that comes before non-attachment, if you wanted to be all buddhist about it.

I think listless doesn't mean what I wanted it to mean because the western world doesn't share my attitude towards desire. I think I'd like a word that can allow me to be in a mood without desire that isn't "lacking" it. A more nuanced iteration of contentment, perhaps.